Lamin Waa Juwara, the organising secretary of the United Democratic Party (UDP), has said that though last Saturday's by-elections in Kiang East and Central Baddibu were free, the alleged buying of opposition votes by agents of the ruling APRC, rendered the polls 'unfair'.
He told the Daily Observer at his Brikama residence that if the APRC was sure of having the support of the people through their political agenda, they would not have resulted to cash-and-carry politics.
"Another measure that confirms the APRC's desperate nature was their use of PPP politicians whom they labelled as corrupt and banned through Decree 89 in their campaign," he alleged. Juwara also charged that the by-elections were supposed to be a political test but that the alleged vote buying proved that "the APRC government can only be counter-productive because they cannot sustain vote purchasing on a national scale.
"A little less than one-third of the votes in Central Baddibu were not cast and this was due to voter apathy. Their votes were paid for and controlled by the APRC and they were made to swear to the Quran to prevent them from voting for the UDP," Juwara further alleged. He however commended the Independent Electoral Commission and the security forces for conducting the polls in a transparent manner, and for preventing violence.
"The counting of votes on the spot was good because it made the election transparent and the security personnel did a good job as well by providing security," he noted, stressing that the UDP would certainly win the October presidential polls. An APRC stalwart who spoke to the Daily Observer on the issue wondered why the UDP propaganda secretary was finding it difficult to accept the reality of his party's failure in their strongholds. "Why do they always find pretexts for failure?" he asked